His Apartment
by 24writer
Summary: This is an AU series of glimpses of Jack and Renee in his apartment after they make love. Pavel does not exist in this world. Adult language, implied sexual situations. I have a more sexually explicit, long J/R story, Rediscovery, on 24nmore dot com.


**Sex**

Sex with Jack was good. No. Great. Renee was glad, but not surprised. Ever since the first time she saw him move she'd imagined he would be good in bed.

**Cereal**

Being here in his bed felt so natural that it seemed like they'd been in bed together forever. Although, in reality, it had only been a few hours. Renee was perfectly content with that and would choose to never get up. But, out of necessity, they had to. She was starving.

Jack threw on a pair of sweat pants and a baggy crew necked sweatshirt after digging them out of his suitcase. Renee padded to the bathroom. When she came out she heard him already rummaging in the kitchen. Grabbing a white linen shirt that conveniently happened to be at the top of a full box of his things, she threw it on and fiddled with the buttons on her way to join him.

He smiled at the sight of her in his shirt. His eyes lingered after the smile was gone and Renee wanted to ask what he was thinking, but didn't.

"I'm sorry, I don't have much," he apologized when she peered into the open pantry cabinet. "I was moving yesterday-supposedly."

He wasn't kidding. A few open boxes of cereal and a box of pasta. She heard the clank of a pot landing on a burner and knew he was boiling water for that last box. Before she moved away, the red cereal box caught her eye.

"Fruity Pebbles?" she asked picking up the box. "I pictured you more of a Captain Crunch man," she teased.

Jack smiled and huffed a short laugh. "Teri was here for breakfast yesterday," he said as he drew closer. She thought he was going to touch her, and Renee suspected Jack thought he was too. Instead, he changed course and took the box from her hand and exchanged it on the shelf for the lonely blue box of rotini.

"It seems so long ago," he said wistfully, staring at the cereal box. "Yesterday morning, I mean," he clarified without needing to.

"Yeah," Renee said, knowing she was keeping him from his family. A familiar wave of guilt washed over her. She was intruding on his life. And his life, his family, was too fragile to bear the weight of the luggage she carried.

Suddenly he was hugging her. She felt the flat edge of the box in his hand against the small of her back. "But I'm glad that at least, as bad as it was, what happened brought us to this." He smiled at her and kissed her gently on the cheek. Renee, not for the first time, felt like he'd read her mind as he let her go and moved towards the stove.

**Shampoo**

They'd showered separately. Somehow, by unspoken acknowledgment, each knew the other needed some time alone after all that had happened—both at CTU and here in his bedroom. Jack had one bottle of generic shampoo. Renee was amused that she smelled like him right now. She liked that.

Even more, she liked that she found herself wrapped in his arms. Dressed in his shirt again, clean, warm, and sitting between his legs at the head of the bed, feeling the soft fleece of his sweats against her bare legs.

They had been sitting like this for a while now, without pressure of a clock or a schedule. She felt his chest move up and down against her back, his arms gently enclosing her. Nothing sexual. No demands. He was just holding her, not saying much. The room was growing dark and neither of them could find the momentum to move to turn on a light. And it all felt right. Especially when she felt his lips kiss her still damp hair and he sighed contentedly.

**Empty**

The near absence of traffic sounds confirmed it was still deep in the middle of the night. The other side of the bed was empty. Jack sat up quickly, afraid that all that he remembered might have only been a dream. His heart had a chance to speed up in disappointed panic before he spotted her discarded jeans sitting just under the window where he'd thrown them. Now _there_ was a good memory. A real memory. Thank God.

The jeans evidence that she was still in the apartment, he popped out of bed and padded quietly to the door. Across the room, silhouetted in the arch of the window by the neon glow of the hotel sign, she stood, still dressed in his white shirt, staring down at the street. A car passed by two stories below, the headlights just bright enough to give him a momentary glimpse of the curves of her body through the linen of the shirt.

She didn't hear him approach. "You okay?" he asked from a safe distance as not to startle her—or intrude. A lot had happened quickly. Maybe now she was taking the time to think it all over. Reconsider.

"Yeah," she said quietly without turning.

Jack couldn't help himself. He closed the few steps between them and placed his hands gently on the crest of her hips. The feel of her, her warmth, her simple presence immediately aroused him. He didn't press into her as he so desperately wanted. She could be out here escaping from him.

They'd fallen asleep without really talking. The exhaustion of the day had caught up with him suddenly as he'd held her. He knew she'd closed her eyes minutes before he had-he'd felt her relax in his arms and fall more heavily onto his chest. Sleepily, she had slipped down under the covers with him when she'd awoken as he had moved to lie down.

"Do you want me to leave you alone?" he asked, praying the answer was 'no.' A long pause made him fear that was, indeed, going to be her answer.

"That's the last thing I ever want you to do," she said quietly just before he was about to pull his hands away. Renee put her right hand over his. Jack closed the last inches between them. He knew she had to feel him.

"I'm sorry," he apologized. He wasn't out here to pull her back to bed for sex. But his body seemed to think otherwise.

She chuckled and covered his other hand. "Don't be," she said. "I don't think I could ever be angry that you want me."

"But you know I don't want you that way," he said, bringing his hands up around her waist and his face close to her ear from behind her.

"Really?" she asked teasingly. His sweats and the thin linen she wore were hiding nothing.

"Okay," Jack acquiesced smiling. "I don't want you _only_ in that way."

"I know," she said after a pause, her voice breaking a little. Jack gave her a moment. "That's why I'm out here," she said. "Pinching myself. Trying to convince myself this is real. I woke up…" she paused and although her voice was under control, Jack knew she was crying. "I woke up and saw you sleeping next to me…and I…I…"

"You thought you were dreaming," Jack finished for her.

"Yeah," she agreed. "Only I don't have good dreams."

"And you panicked," Jack said close to her ear. "Because you want it to be true, but won't let yourself believe you can be happy." He felt his own voice cracking and had to stop. He planted a soft kiss on her ear and pulled him to her more tightly.

"You too?" she asked hoarsely.

"Yeah," Jack admitted.

His hands moved upward and lightly caressed her breasts. One of her hands snaked between their bodies and touched him through the thin sweats he was wearing. He began with the top button of the shirt and slowly went down, taking his time with each one, watching their faint reflection as she was slowly exposed to the window.

"Take your shirt off," she ordered as the last button on the shirt she wore fell open. She watched his ghost in the window as it followed her request.

Neither of them smiled as they studied the couple that stared back at them from the dark. He had on hand on her belly, the other poised seductively on her chest, his little finger barely riding the swell of her breast. The big shirt was slowly trying to slip off her shoulders.

None of the scars they bore so obviously in the light were visible in that dark window. And neither made an effort to stop the shirt as it fluttered to the floor before she turned in his arms to kiss him.

**Freckles**

No make- up, the sun streaming through small slats in the blinds. Jack awoke facing her. Only his eyes moved as he took in the details of her. The scattered freckles that she camouflaged by day were perfect. They were her. Not the battered and exhausted woman from yesterday…but really her. Some kid from the Midwest whose freckles blossomed in the sun every summer. His hand slipped up and fingered the reddish hair draping across the side of the pillow. So beautiful.

**Waking Up**

His hand weighted down the edge of her pillow. It wasn't until she moved her head that she realized his fingers were gently entwined in a few strands of her hair. So few and so gently that when she moved her head, he didn't stir.

Renee turned onto her side and watched him breathe. He lay on his own side, his naked chest exposed to low…very low…on his waist. She scooted down a bit so she could see past the hand he'd left so close to her face, a little disappointed when the movement didn't wake him. Her hand went to his hip and rested there, half on, half off the hem of the sheet.

When he still didn't rouse, as much as she tried not to let them, her eyes flitted to the scars on his torso. His chest was better than she remembered. He must have let them fix the worst of them. Nevertheless, she was still able to follow a faint trail of injury down to where it disappeared under the white cotton.

"Ask," his voice, husky but soft, ordered, surprising her. She hadn't noticed his eyes open. She looked up at them now, sad but earnest in their blue depths.

Looking away from those eyes, back down to where her hand was, she pushed the sheet slightly lower on his hip. She didn't expose him. But she saw enough. She'd seen glimpses yesterday when they'd made love. "No, Jack," she said, pulling the sheet up further than where it had started and returning her hands to her own pillow, burying the fists they instinctively made in her embarrassment and hurt for him deep into the soft down.

His sleepy eyes made an exaggerated blink. He looked away and then rolled onto his back. His chest moved up and down quickly in a soundless sigh.

"I don't want you wondering," he said after a long moment. He rolled back to his side and stroked her face with his hand.

"I haven't been with a lot of women since…" he paused. Renee realized this wasn't easy for him. This wasn't even him—the closed Jack she was used to. "…since…" He swallowed hard. "One in Europe. I could see it in her face." His head turned toward the ceiling. "And at the hospital, the staff…" his voice tapered off. He looked toward her again. "That…they… didn't matter. But you do."

"I'm sorry, Jack, I…" flustered by the distinction and what it had to mean, still embarrassed to have been looking…and wondering.

"Just ask, Renee," he stopped her apology. "I'm not angry. I just don't want you to always wonder."

"You've never told anyone." She knew. There were holes in everything she'd ever read.

He said nothing. They studied each other. Renee held back the tears. She'd shed too many. He wasn't asking for pity. He was sharing a trust.

She crossed the space between them, took his head in her hands and put a soft kiss on his lips before nestling close on his pillow and tucking her head into the crook of his shoulder.

"Tell me what he did to you, Jack," she said quietly. When he exhaled deeply she felt his warm breath waft across the top of her head just before he began to speak.

**Messages**

Jack reluctantly rolled away from Renee's warm body. He spied his phone on the floor before he rose, barely reaching it with an outstretched arm as he lay on his belly. Behind him, Renee's weight left the bed. He ignored the dark, silent phone in his hand as he watched her stride past him, naked, into the bathroom. She smiled at him watching her and he couldn't help but smile back. She closed the door behind her and he finally summoned the willpower to turn the phone back on, dreading what he might find.

Chloe and Kim. He felt simultaneous guilt and relief that he'd turned the phone off. Kim first.

"Dad. Where are you? Chloe told me you are okay. Probably sleeping after all that happened. But I'm worried. Teri is asking for you. Please call me and let me know you are okay." Her number appeared three times.

Chloe's number appeared more. But not for the last several hours. Either she had given up, or whatever the crisis was, it had passed. Her messages were short, vague, and increasingly urgent sounding until the last. "I get it Jack, you are out. I won't bother you anymore. And anyway, it's all over. You can relax. And Kim is looking for you. Call her please."

He was amused at the exasperation in her voice. And pleased with himself that he felt no remorse whatsoever at ducking whatever it was she had wanted of him. That wasn't his job anymore. And he…no, they…had already done enough. Although he hoped when he finally did see some news, the guilt wouldn't come flooding back.

"Everything okay?" Renee asked. Jack realized he was staring at the phone in his hand.

"Yeah. Fine." He looked up at Renee standing there wrapped in a towel, and then down at the last caller ID flashing Kim's number. He had some thinking to do.

**The Couch**

Renee tried to luxuriate in the feel of the soft fleece blanket wrapped around her naked body, the leather couch creaking as she pulled her legs beneath her. He'd been gone twenty minutes and the darkness was there, lurking, just below the surface. That quickly. It scared her that this contentment was so fragile. That his physical presence was so important. She worried how unfair that was to Jack.

She pulled the blanket tighter and brought her knees to her chest. The leather made another soft protest. She supposed it had done that last night. But she hadn't heard it then. Closing her eyes, she rested her chin on her fleece covered knees and replayed their lovemaking to keep the anxiety at bay.

He'd lead her by the hand from that window, to this spot. His kiss had been so hungry that she'd finally begun to believe that he needed this, their being together, almost as much as she did. The last remaining garment between them, his sweat pants, hadn't come off until after she was straddling his lap as he sat right here. Renee wasn't sure if his pants even ever made it all the way off. His urgency had been contagious.

Yet the lovemaking itself had been slow and perfect. But, in some way, sad and mournful. Maybe it had been the strange cast from the neon sign on his serious face. Or the way he had held her so carefully as she had perched atop him, as if she were breakable. Well, maybe she was. His forehead had eventually come to rest against her chest, like a child needing comfort. And she had given it, holding his head to her breast, his hair slightly damp with their lovemaking, wanting to never let him go.

But she'd had to. And she had never wanted for their hibernation here in his apartment to end. But it had. They did need to eat. He'd left for coffee and bagels, and the surreal quality of the last twenty four hours evaporated the instant the door clicked closed behind him. When he came back, reality would come with him.

**Confession**

Renee looked at him, sitting at the other end of the sofa, over the magazine she was holding but hardly reading. She liked this relaxed, lazy Saturday Jack. Even if she had fantasized about him—and she had—she had never conjured him like this. So normal.

The heady, overwhelming need…the lust…was sated. They needed things now: food, clean clothes for her, maybe a plan. But he hadn't acted skittish, as if this was a mistake. No, if anything, his matter of fact calm, normal conversation, and the comfortable silences as they ate were keeping apprehension at bay…and the darkness.

He brushed a few crumbs off his sweatshirt, balled the paper that had contained his breakfast, and rose. He went to the bedroom and rummaged through his suitcase, re-emerging from the bedroom with three bottles of medicine. He didn't look at her. She didn't say anything. Behind her, she heard the water running, the click of a glass, and then the snap of a cap being replaced.

In silence, he came back and settled deep into the couch.

"I have a seizure disorder. I don't have them. But I could…without the meds I mean. There's still a few problems," he said flatly in confession.

"You mean you're not perfect?"

"No. Not perfect,' he said, a smile cracking now.

"Damn," she muttered and turned back to her magazine.

**Kim**

The phone rang and he answered it without leaving the room. He sat across from her and glued his eyes to hers as he spoke. Renee could only hear his side of the conversation. But it was enough.

"You are going to California?" she asked, afraid, as he tossed the phone on the table after telling Kim he loved her.

"Maybe," he said, still locking her with his eyes. "She wants me to."

She had to look away.

"What do you want?" she asked into her lap.

"I want you," he answered.

"Jack," she tried to argue. "She's your daughter. You've literally known me three days."

"It doesn't matter."

"Yes, it does," she insisted.

"Do I have to choose?" he asked quietly, his confidence eroding slightly.

Renee's head shook reflexively in disbelief. "You're asking me to go with you?"

"I…" he paused and his eyes dropped to his lap. He looked back up at her. "Yes. I am."

**More Confessions**

"I came to the hospital."

"What hospital?" he asked, turning from refrigerator, her words not quite sinking in.

"I came to see you, in the hospital. Early on. A week or so after Larry's funeral."

Jack looked confused. "You did?" he asked. "No one told me."

"Because no one knew. Except maybe a couple of night nurses." Renee sighed and shifted, swinging her legs off the sofa and looking down at her naked feet. "I was being stupid," she said still staring at her painted toenails. "I'd heard you'd had the treatment. I needed to talk to someone."

Jack came around and wordlessly sat on the coffee table in front of her. She didn't like the look of pity or regret or whatever it was on his face. She shouldn't have told him.

"I didn't think how damn sick you would still be."

"I'm sorry."

Renee laughed ironically. "You're sorry because you were burning up with fever and barely conscious in the middle of the night when I felt the need for a guidance counselor?"

"I'm sorry I couldn't have been there for you," he said so seriously it almost brought tears to her eyes.

"I'm sorry I couldn't have stayed for you," she admitted with a hitch in her voice.

She pulled her legs up and balled her body into a little protective cocoon inside the blanket. The feeling she'd gotten was still so fresh. The medicine smell, all the tubes, the hovering nurses were still magnified in her mind, the soft beeps of the machines a cacophony of sound in her head. Jack had looked straight at her and not known who she was. She'd said his name and his only response had been to close his eyes and go back to trying to live, his feverish, raspy breaths fogging the mask strapped to his face.

_He could still die_. The thought had reverberated through her mind. And in that instance, she had known she couldn't stay and watch it. And, even worse, she had known she was truly and utterly alone. As delusional as it may have been, in those early days, she'd believed that she'd have Jack to fall back on. As long as he was still alive. But he was barely alive. And she was too scared and too fragile to handle it. So she'd run. And the downward spiral had started from there.

**Late Afternoon**

They made love again. In his bed on a grey afternoon. She settled into his arms. She was right. It had only been three days. But, God, it didn't feel like that. It felt so fucking right. How the hell was that possible?

"I've never been to California," she said quietly, from nowhere.

"It's not bad." He had to consciously try to keep his voice calm. "And I find that hard to believe."

"Born and raised east of the Mississippi." There was a beautiful lilt of laughter in her voice, hinting she wasn't afraid of this…or him. "I've always wanted to try surfing."

"That can be arranged," he said, overwhelmed and hiding it.

They were quiet for a long while.

"Thank you," he said barely audibly.

**His Hand**

Renee showered and dressed in freshly laundered clothes. That's what they'd done today…a load of laundry. And made love. And avoided the TV and the rest of the world.

She found him drifting to sleep on the sofa. She stood over him and for the thousandth time in the last day and a half pinched herself to test that all this was real. Literally. Quietly she knelt at his side, the soft whistle of his breath the only sound in the world. Leaning in, she planted a soft kiss on his lips, slightly parted and so damn seductive that they should be illegal. His eyelids fluttered and he smiled without opening his eyes. They might need to ban those lashes too.

"You'd think we'd spent enough time in bed you could stay awake," she teased as he awoke fully and looked up at her before he laughed a soft laugh.

"You wore me out."

"Good," she said, grabbing his hand and tugging him to his feet.

"We could go back to bed," he proposed devilishly, taking her hips in his hand and pulling her close.

"We can't put this off forever," she countered, still sorely tempted.

"Yeah," he said, suddenly serious. But instead of moving, he lowered his head and kissed her.

His hands on her hips, her breasts pressed against his chest, her hands alighting on his hard arms. It was Jack that finally, reluctantly, broke the kiss. He stared down at her and smiled.

"You ready?"

"Yeah," she answered as if he wasn't only asking about getting dinner, but asking if she was ready to face it _all_ again—go out there. Then she realized he was…asking that.

"Let's go," he said, leading her towards the door.

"Yeah," she repeated. But more resolutely this time, feeling his large hand wrapped around hers as they closed the door and left the apartment behind them.


End file.
